Authorities eased their heavy-handed tactics of repression for much of the year even as a restrictive new media law took effect. The change in tone coincided with the European Union’s suspension of a three-year-old travel ban against President Aleksandr Lukashenko and 35 top officials that was first imposed in response to the regime’s treatment of opposition activists and journalists.

But journalists debunked
the notion of any significant, sustained improvement in the press freedom
climate. The government continued to bar independent newspapers from using
state-controlled distribution companies, police harassed independent and
pro-opposition reporters, and regulators denied accreditation to foreign news
outlets and their reporters. And by late year, the government began to apply
the provisions of its new media law more aggressively. The law, which was passed in 2008 and took effect in
February 2009, required all media to obtain new government registration,
complicated the accreditation process for reporters, toughened sanctions
against news outlets to include closure and suspensions, barred international financing of domestic media, and applied longstanding restrictions on
traditional media to online publications. Lukashenko had signed the measure
over the objections of domestic and international media advocates.

Journalists encountered
surprisingly few obstacles in the first few months under the new law, CPJ
research showed. The Information Ministry created a simple process for media to
apply for new registration, Aleksei Korol, editor of the independent weekly Novy Chas, told CPJ. The Minsk-based Belarusian Association of Journalists
(BAJ) said that by late year about 45 percent of the nation’s media outlets,
many of them entertainment-based, had successfully obtained registration. The
law required all outlets to obtain new registration within a year of its
inception on February 8.

Korol told CPJ that
authorities had also backed away from explicit repressive tactics—arrests,
newsrooms raids, equipment confiscation, and exorbitant fines—that they had
heavily relied on in past years. The government did not immediately apply the
new media law to online publications, as advocates had feared, and did not block
domestic access to pro-opposition Web sites. But the regime did not remove its
yoke from the independent media, Korol and others noted.

Andrei Bastunets, a legal
analyst for BAJ, told CPJ that the regime’s tactics changed in the fall, and
the press freedom climate again deteriorated. The Information Ministry
unexpectedly amended registration requirements in September by imposing
experience and educational requirements for top editorial staff and barring
outlets from using an editor’s home as an official address, Bastunets said.
(Many independent newspapers, small and with few resources, are based in
editors’ homes.) After these changes, several independent newspapers—Mahilyouski Chas, Soligorsk Plyus, Novaya
Gazeta Bobruiska, Prefekt Plyus, and Marinahorskaya Hazeta among them—saw their applications for
registration denied.

Hundreds of other media
outlets were waiting in late year for word on their registration applications,
and advocates feared the hardening of the government’s tone signaled the
potential for numerous denials.

The EU imposed travel and
financial sanctions against Belarussian officials in 2006 in response to the
regime’s crackdown on opposition activists and journalists. The travel ban was
suspended in October 2008 by the EU, which then extended the suspension
throughout 2009. The EU said it was pursuing a policy of engagement; analysts
noted that European diplomats were concerned about Russian influence on the
former Soviet state. Benita Ferrero-Waldner, EU external relations commissioner,
told reporters in Minsk that government progress on democracy and human rights
issues—including the release of political prisoners—had prompted the EU to ease
the sanctions. Still, Lukashenko’s regime had not demonstrated full respect for
press freedom or allowed civil society activists to work without fear of
reprisal, Ferrero-Waldner told the U.S. government-funded Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty.

International press
freedom advocates—including the International Federation of Journalists, Index
on Censorship, and the Open Society Institute—concluded after a September
fact-finding mission that authorities continued to rely on “a number of
repressive provisions that can be used to silence critical, oppositional, or
alternative voices.” In their post-mission report, titled “For Free and Fair
Media in Belarus,” the groups said press freedom was threatened by the state’s
monopoly on newspaper distribution, the regular denial of accreditation to
foreign outlets and their local reporters, and tax and economic policies that
favor state media. BAJ noted that tax exemptions for state media gave them a
significant competitive advantage over private outlets.

State-controlled
distributors Soyuzpechat and Belpochta continued to blacklist 13 independent
newspapers, including the prominent publications Novy Chas, Tovarishch, Vitebsky
Kuryer, and Gazeta Slonimskaya, local and international media experts said. Authorities also harassed private businesses and detained
volunteers who sought to circulate the blacklisted publications, CPJ research
found. The state-controlled distributors claimed they were acting within the
law by refusing to sign service agreements with independent media outlets,
Korol said. Their position was backed by Natalya Petkevich, a senior
administration official who said the government would not force the
distributors to carry independent newspapers in their catalogues and kiosks.

Internet penetration in
the country reached 30 percent, the state news agency BelTA reported in March,
citing government statistics. This greater access, coupled with the poor
climate for the traditional press, led most embattled independent and
pro-opposition media to establish themselves on the Web, winning loyal
audiences both inside the country and abroad, CPJ research shows. While the
government did not exercise any notable online censorship in 2009, its
ownership of the country’s sole Internet service provider, Beltelekom, gives it
the ability to block access to critical publications.

Authorities were sensitive
to critical coverage originating from Poland-based broadcasters, leading them
to target the outlets for obstruction. Authorities barred Poland-based Radio
Racyja and satellite television channel Belsat from opening offices in the
country, and denied credentials to their reporters. In November, after a
prolonged application process, the Poland-based European Radio for Belarus won
permission to open a bureau for one year; the Belarusian government approved
the permit just as it was undergoing a periodic EU review. The Foreign Ministry
denied an entry visa to Belsat Director Agnieszka Romaszewska, who planned to
attend an international conference organized by the German Embassy in Minsk.
According to the local press, the Foreign Ministry did not provide Romaszewska
with an explanation.

In March, the Information
Ministry refused to renew accreditation to Andrzej Poczobut, a local
correspondent for Poland’s largest daily, Gazeta Wyborcza. Authorities told Poczobut his application had been denied because
of a series of articles critical of the Lukashenko administration. Poczobut’s
articles covered a police fingerprinting initiative; the deportation of three
Polish Catholic priests; and criminal lawsuits filed against recently released
political prisoners. The Foreign Ministry declared the articles biased and
insulting to the president, according to local news reports.

The credentials of
journalists Ivan Roman and Viktor Parfenenko of Radio Racyja also were denied,
according to local press reports. Throughout the year, prosecutors issued
warnings to at least 14 local journalists who contributed to unaccredited
foreign broadcasters, Bastunets told CPJ.

In September and October,
police harassed journalists covering protest rallies in Minsk that commemorated
political prisoners and opposition politicians who disappeared in the late
1990s, local press reports said. Plainclothes agents followed reporters and
blocked their cameras when they tried to document arrests of protesters
gathered in downtown Minsk, Bastunets told CPJ. Police also detained and beat
several journalists at an October 29 opposition rally. The government’s long
history of arresting and harassing journalists has resulted in widespread
self-censorship, especially in the regions, Korol told CPJ.

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Attacks on the Press in 2011: Profiles in Freedom

February 21, 2012 11:35 PM ET

How does one negotiate the choice to stay and report potentially dangerous news, rather than take a less risky assignment, leave the profession, or flee the country? The recipients of the 2011 International Press Freedom Awards explain. By Kristin Jones...